Five Steps Closer
by PiratePrincess29
Summary: After all his years of waiting, it turned out Demetri had acquired himself a mate long ago. It would just take a few brief moments of clarity for him to realize it. Tanya/Demetri One-Shot.


**A/N:**** Just**__**a ****_slight_**** drabble that I came up with. I quite like how Tanya was portrayed in the films and thought that she deserved ahappy ending, too. And you all know my sentiments towards Demetri, namely the actor who plays him. *daydreams* Right. Enjoy! And please review, I'd like to know if I'm writing a load of junk. Or not, you know, whatever tickles your fancy. **

_**Disclaimer: SM owns all, I just like to play with her creations from time to time.**_

_The day we met_

_Frozen, I held my breath_

_Right from the start_

_I knew that I'd found a home for my heart._

_- A Thousand Years Pt. 2, by Christina Perri_

* * *

Tanya smiled as she watched Bella tuck Nessie into bed. "You have a charming daughter."

"And we're lucky to have such amazing family. Thanks for coming." Bella turned the lights off and stood up, walking out of Renesmee's room, closing the door. "I mean it, we all really appreciate it."

"Don't mention it. Anything to help our family." Tanya smiled. "You and Edward have a miracle to protect, after all. And Kate seems to be quite happy with Garrett. Funny how these things work out, isn't it?"

"I never asked." Bella started uncomfortably. "Have you ever...?"

"What, found a mate?" She sighed. "No. But it's alright, I've been alone for so long, I'm quite used to it. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go for a walk. Kate's busy!" She said with mirth, pleased for her sister having found her mate.

It was amazing how well she was able to lie. After all this time, though, she did have enough practice to be able to do so convincingly. No one would ever need to know.

But Edward, of all people, had heard everything in her thoughts and set out to follow her as she'd sped into the forest behind the Cullen family home. "Tanya! Come back!"

She stopped in her tracks. "I should have known you'd disapprove. Forgive me, I don't exactly have a choice, Edward, it just happened, I can't..."

He nodded understandingly. "I know. And you shouldn't have to. We can't ask you to fight against your mate."

She scoffed. "_Mate_." Tanya looked Edward in the eyes. "A mate who doesn't even know I exist. Who killed my mother."

* * *

_"Mother! No! Let her go, please! Mother, no, please, no!" Tanya watched in abject horror as members of the guard dismembered her mother's corpse and burned it. And just like that, she was gone forever, along with the Immortal Child she had so cherished. Blasted child! She and her sisters had warned her to get rid of it before something like this happened. And now, they were likely to die as well. Kate and Irena looked at her. As the eldest, she was now the figurehead of this coven. She had to stay strong for them. But all that remained in the wake of the fire were her sobs as she fell from one of the guard's grasp to the ground, unable to move. He had tried to steady her, whether out of kindness or propriety, she didn't know._

_But then she turned around, to look at her sisters, but saw him instead, with his shaggy blonde hair and cold, red eyes staring back at her. And she knew. How cruel the world was, thrusting her into misery, then putting her on the brink of happiness, and stripping it all away again. She could love him, but he would never love her. _

_The Volturi member scowled at her staring and she looked back to the ground, in shock. Too much had happened here. It would be best not to tell him. There would be less pain that way. _

_"What are we to do with these, Master?" He asked. And his voice, like silky honey, entered her ears. Those eight words - the first she ever heard from her mate - would stick with her forever. _

_Aro walked over to Irina, first, and then to Kate, who had to resist using her debilitating power on him, and read their memories. "They are innocent. Against Sasha's insistence of the child. We shall spare them."_

_Demetri frowned, enjoying a good kill. Even if the prey were as beautiful and tantalizing as these creatures. "And this one?" He said, tugging on her, causing Tanya to gasp in fear. Just because her sisters had been pardoned didn't mean she would be, too. Especially when Aro saw what she was and what his precious tracker was to her. _

_Aro walked over and took her hand, furrowing his brow in knowing. She pleaded with him not to say anything. Aro was anything if not merciful in these instances. That, and he of course did not want Demetri to leave the Volturi, and so nodded to her in acquiescence to her silent request. "Well well, my dear. It seems you are innocent, as well. Perhaps you'll keep in better, lawful company from now on, hm? We wouldn't want to have to meet in such circumstances again, now would we? Given what's at stake?"_

_She bowed her head in gratitude for not revealing her secret. "No, Aro. We would not."_

_"Very good. Let us go home, now. Jane? Demetri?" He said, waving to them, and speeding off into the darkness. _

_Tanya watched him leave and hurt at the way he let go of her, so easily, not even knowing what he had in his arms. Demetri. That was his name, then. Demetri. Demetri..._

* * *

"Who'll probably kill _me_, too, if I let him." She admitted, at last.

"The bond of mates is strong, though, surely he felt something?" And then understanding dawned in his eyes at her thoughts. "Of course. Chelsea."

Tears brimmed in her eyes. "Exactly. As long as she has a hold on him, he'll never know. And I can't act against her, not unless I want to bring even more trouble over our heads."

"I have one question." He started. "Why didn't you tell us before? I should have been able to see this. And why all the... flirting? If you knew you had him, why try with me?"

A sad smile crossed her features. She knew she'd have to tell him eventually, but couldn't bring herself to voice the truth. _Why try it on with all those human men? Kate and Irina enjoyed it, I did it to take away the pain. And you... You were always so kind to me, Edward, sometimes I'd pretend you were him. That we were mates and that he'd realized. That he'd come away with me, become one of us._ "But I know that can't happen."

"You never know." He replied, having cunningly hatched a plan to unite the two lonely lovers and give their hearts a reason to figuratively beat again.

* * *

"Bella, now." Edward whispered. "Just him, if you can manage it. He needs to see."

Tanya looked over, having heard them speaking. _Edward, what are you doing?_ He just looked back at her and smiled. "Giving you a chance."

"I've almost got him." Bella said, furrowing her brows in concentration.

_One step closer..._

Demetri took a few steps forward, assuming the defensive position in front of the three Masters, with Felix flanking them on the other side when suddenly, he felt something overcome him. No, that wasn't right. He felt something leave him. But what was it?

"Master, they're doing something, they..." He started, scanning the line of the Cullens and their witnesses when his red eyes met a pair of gold ones, the form they belonged to trembling in fear. He recognized her tenor, he must have met her before. And that's when he realized. They were there the night of the Immortal Children. The one who cried in so undignified a manner at the death of that lawless woman. The one he had been itching to kill. But why was this desire gone? And replaced with an entirely new desire? And for the first time since he had joined the Volturi, he felt pieces of his human self start to come to life and he could finally breathe again.

Aro looked concerned, also scanning the line of vampires opposite them. "What is it, young Demetri? What is troubling you? Come, let me see."

Demetri turned to Aro and for the first time, didn't see his Master, but simply a man. A man who had kept him under a spell. He crooned his neck further still to look at Chelsea, who had also been affected by whatever was happening, having noticed that he was no longer under her control.

Bella leaned into Edward. "I can't hold it that far much longer. Say something."

Edward could see Demetri's thoughts were confused, and that he hadn't yet come to terms with everything Bella's power was allowing him to see and feel. He looked over to Tanya and simply nodded.

She nodded back and took a tentative step forward, the snow beneath her feet crunching, causing Demetri's head to whip back round and face her, his eyes squinting at the sight before him.

_One step closer..._

Tanya cleared her voice, knowing no one but Bella and Edward knew of her secret, not even her sisters, Irena and Kate watching from either side of the battlefield. "Hello, Demetri." Finally, the two words she had been waiting over a thousand years to say to him. "My name is..."

"Tanya." He interrupted, again, with the same sinewy voice she remembered. Tanya closed her eyes and relished it. "Of the Denali coven. What is this?" He asked, not willing to give in to the feeling in the pit of his stomach, of pure unadulterated joy and longing to whisk this woman into his arms and never let go. What was she doing to him? What made him feel this way? Where had his loyalties gone? Had they ever been there in the first place? He spared another quick glance at Aro, who was looking furious, knowing what was about to happen.

He would not lose his tracker and was glaring daggers at the icy blonde in front of them. Tanya caught Aro's eyes and flashes of what happened to her mother passed through her mind. But her mother had been alone. Her friends, her family would not let the same thing happen to her. That same day, the first time she saw him...

A smile crossed her face before she opened her mouth, nervous, not wanting him to reject her, not wanting to incur punishments for those on her side. This was about Renesmee, after all, not her broken love story. What could she say? But this was it. This was her moment to let him know. It was now or never.

"I hadn't said anything before, I didn't want to... complicate things." She said feebly, not sure if this had been a good idea.

"Indeed." Aro interceded. "That was what we decided, all those years ago. _Not_ _to complicate things._ Not to put find yourself in the same situation as your poor,_ wretched_ mother."

At that, Kate hissed, the memory of the loss of Sasha still fresh in the minds of the three daughters she left behind.

Fear crept up in Tanya's mind once again, halting her speech, despite her mate's imploring eyes. Such sad eyes, begging for an explanation.

"Tanya, you've got little time left." Said Bella. "I can't hold on much longer. Say what you need to say."

Tanya quickly looked at Bella and nodded. It was time to stop being a coward. She had waited so long for this moment and now he was finally free. Free to hear the truth. She had so much to say to him, so much that had built up over time. Everything she felt, from that one chance encounter that ended so terribly, yet so beautifully because she had found him. She had finally found him.

He was free from their clutches, standing separate from them. No longer a pawn of the Volturi, just Demetri. Just her mate. This was it. This was likely the only chance she would ever get at setting things right between them.

_One step closer..._

With a firm canter, she started heading in his direction, safe from the powers of Jane and Alec in Bella's shield bubble but Kate dislodged herself from Garrett's arms and tried pulling her back.

"What are you doing? You can't trust them!" She admonished.

Tanya broke free from her sister's grasp. "It's alright, sister. He won't hurt me." Demetri's ears perked up at this as he continued to gaze at her. How did she know he wouldn't? "Not his mate."

At those three little words, insignificant in any other order, it finally hit him. That was the reason she had clung to him in desperation at her mother's death, why she looked at him that way in the battlefield, why she was so scared. How had he not seen it before?

All of a sudden, Bella gasped, having lost control over the shield protecting Demetri. He felt a slight shift, but had not forgotten the information he had just learned. Chelsea started to smile, having gotten him back in her grasp, though not to the same degree.

"I've lost him." Bella said apologetically, looking at her sadly. "I'm sorry." She mouthed, genuinely feeling terrible that she couldn't give her enough time.

Tanya's breath caught in her throat. "No." She whispered.

Demetri may have been pulled back into the clutches of Chelsea but something in him had changed. His eyes raised to meet that of Tanya, this blonde vixen so keen on speaking to him, putting herself at risk. She truly was beautiful and he finally knew. He was home.

Aro signaled to Jane and she looked at the same vampire Demetri was fixed upon. "Pain."

Tanya fell to her knees, out of Bella's protection, but she waved behind her for everyone to stay back. This was not their battle.

Something in Demetri broke. This woman was suffering, but he was suffering, too. Kate and Irina looked on in abject horror, wondering why her supposed mate wasn't doing anything.

He couldn't let this happen. Not now that he'd found her, waiting all these years for something other than duty and obedience to the Volturi and she had been right in front of him all this time. For over one thousand years, he had been hers, and didn't even know. But he would not leave her alone in this any longer.

Aro would be damned if he thought he was going to win this. "Stop!" Demetri shouted and Jane, even obedient little Jane who only ever followed Aro's orders, was distracted enough by the desperation in his voice enough to stop her powers, much to Tanya's relief.

Shadows of the pain still lingered in her body, causing parts of it to convulse in the aftershock. Kate and Garrett had run up to her and carried her back, safe behind Bella's line of defense.

"You tried." Edward said. "That's what matters." At that, having read Demetri's thoughts, he smiled. "And perhaps it will be enough."

* * *

Tanya heard footsteps approaching her from behind and closed her eyes, preparing for the worst. "I knew someone would come before long. That's why I left the others, there is no need to put them in any more danger. I just did not think that Aro would be so cruel as to send you. Even the witch twin would have been better." Tanya said with such sad eyes that Demetri couldn't speak for a few moments, before he regained his composure.

"Miss Tanya, rest assured, I have not been sent for the purpose you suspect." At her doubtful gaze, he continued. "That is to say, I am not here to end you. I have come to understand what there is between us and would like to extend an invitation for you to come back with us to Ita-"

She started shaking her head determinedly. "You can stop there. I don't know what you're all thinking, that I'd ever consider joining you who took away my mother, and now my sister. What do you take me for?"

"I... I'm sorry." Demetri offered in a soft tone, as soft as she had ever heard from his kind, with a furrowed brow. He was almost unsure about the sentiment himself but after pondering on it, he realized it was true. "I apologize for their deaths. I'm not saying I would not do it again, if it was to serve the law, but I regret that... that it hurt you."

Tanya's breathing had increased out of sheer confusion. He was being so kind... Was it possible that he had come here to claim her as his own after all? But as he raised his head and she saw his blood red eyes, suggesting he'd fed quite recently, she resumed her steely expression. "Is that all?"

He was taken aback by her harsh tone. "We were hoping... Rather, I was hoping, that we could spend some time together. It need not be in Italy, if you do not wish it - Aro has granted me as much. But on the condition that you would eventually join us. I am an esteemed member of the guard - they need me, and I will not abandon my masters. No sooner, however, would I abandon you." He said, reaching out and taking her delightfully dainty hands in his own, pulling her closer to him.

_One step closer..._

And this time, it would be her turn to be the tracker- to dutifully follow him - wherever he would go.

_- Fin -_


End file.
